You wouldn’t expect social media features in a money payment app, but that’s exactly what peer-to-peer app Venmo offers. Many users may not realize that Venmo transactions are public by default. Venmo has three main tabs: one for your personal transactions, one for all the transactions made by friends (i.e. people on your phone’s contact list), and one for all transactions made by people who have their payments completely public. Luckily it only takes a few easy steps to turn this feature off. Why Are Public Transactions an Issue? Venmo’s public transaction feature received a lot of attention when Berlin-based researcher Hang Do Thi Duc was able to use Venmo’s API to put together a site aggregating all that public information.